Chapter XXXVI: Book I (2)

[364] In 1835 Andrew Ure (_Philosophy of Manufactures_, p. 481) reckoned that in the manufacture of cotton, wool, linen, and silk in England there were employed 4800 boys and 5308 girls below 11 years of age, 67,000 boys and 89,000 girls between 11 and 18 years of age, and 88,000 men and 102,000 women above 18 years; a total of 159,000 boys and men against 196,000 girls and women.

[365] J. B. Say, _De l’Angleterre et des Anglais_, in _Œuvres_, vol. iv, p. 213.

[366] Villermé’s report in _Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences morales_, vol. ii, p. 414, note. Villermé’s observations were made in 1835 and 1836, although his celebrated work, _Tableau de l’État physique et moral des Ouvriers_, was not published till 1840. This book is a reproduction of his report to the Academy.

[367] _Enquête sur l’Industrie du Coton_, 1829, p. 87. Evidence of Messrs. Witz and Son, manufacturers.

[368] Vide _Bulletin de la Société_, etc., 1828, p. 326-329.

[369] _Cf._ Rist, _Durée du Travail dans l’Industrie française de 1820 à 1870_, in the _Revue d’Économie politique_, 1897, pp. 371 _et seq._

[370] Sismondi was a native of Geneva. His family was originally Italian, but took refuge in France in the sixteenth century, and migrated to Geneva after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Here Sismondi was born in 1773. He is even better known for his two great works _L’Histoire des Républiques italiennes_ and _L’Histoire des Français_ than for his economic studies. He was a frequent guest of Mme. de Staël at the Château Coppet, and among the other visitors whom he met there was Robert Owen. He died in 1842.

[371] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. xxii. Our quotations are taken from the second edition, published in 1827.

[372] _Ibid._, p. iv.

[373] Two volumes, Paris, 1837 and 1838.

[374] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, pp. 50-51. “Adam Smith’s doctrine is also ours, but the practical conclusion which we draw from the doctrine borrowed from him frequently appears to us to be diametrically opposed to his.”

[375] _Ibid._, p. 56. “Adam Smith recognised the fact that the science of government was largely experimental, that its real foundation lay in the history of various peoples, and that it is only by a judicious observation of facts that we can deduce the general principles. His immortal work is, indeed, the outcome of a philosophic study of the history of mankind.” _Cf._ also vol. i, pp. 47, 389.

[376] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 268. _Cf._ also pp. 388, 389.

[377] _Ibid._, p. 56. In several other passages he takes Ricardo to task (vol. i, pp. 257, 300, 336, 366, 423; vol. ii, pp. 184, 190, 218, 329).

[378] _Ibid._, p. 86.

[379] _Études sur Économie politique_, preface, p. v. Already in his first work, _La Richesse commerciale_, he had declared: “Political economy is based upon the study of man or of men. We must know human nature, the character and destiny of nations in different places and at different times. We must consult historians, question travellers, etc.… The philosophy of history … the study of travels, etc., are parallel studies.”

[380] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 257.

[381] Sismondi’s awkwardness in the manipulation of abstract reasoning is clearly visible in a host of other passages, especially in the vagueness of his definitions. Labour in one place is defined as the source of all revenues (_ibid._, vol. i, p. 85); elsewhere, as the workers’ revenue as contrasted with interest and rent (vol. i, pp. 96, 101, 110, 113, 114; vol. ii, p. 257, etc.). He never distinguishes between national and private capital, and wages are sometimes treated as capital, sometimes as revenue (p. 379). He constantly uses such vague terms as “rich” and “poor” to designate capitalist and worker (vol. ii, chap. 5). In his explanation of how the rate of interest is fixed he says that the strength of the lenders of capital just balances the strength of the borrowers, and, as in all other markets, they hit upon a proportional mean (vol. ii, p. 36). In a similar fashion he is constantly confusing revenue in kind with money revenue.

[382] “Last year’s revenue pays for the production of this.” (_Ibid._, vol. i, p. 120.) Farther on he adds: “After all, what we do is to exchange the total product of this year against the total product of the preceding one” (p. 121). Sismondi attached great importance to the distinction between the national revenue and the annual product. “The confusion of the annual revenue with the annual product casts a thick veil over the whole science. On the other hand, all becomes clear and facts fall in with the theory as soon as one is separated from the other.” (_Ibid._, pp. 366-367.) It is he himself, on the contrary, who creates the confusion.

[383] McCulloch criticised Sismondi in an article in the _Edinburgh Review_ of October 1819. For J. B. Say see pp. 115-117.

With regard to Ricardo, Sismondi relates that in the very year of his death he had two or three conversations with him on this subject at Geneva. In the end he seems to have accepted Ricardo’s point of view, but not without several reservations. “We arrive then at Ricardo’s conclusion and find that when circulation is complete (and having nowhere been arrested) production does give rise to consumption”; but he adds: “This involves making an abstraction of time and place, and of all those obstacles which might arrest this circulation.”

Sismondi defended his point of view against his three critics in two articles reprinted at the end of the second edition of the _Nouveaux Principes_.

[384] “The accumulation of wealth _in abstracto_ is not the aim of government, but the participation by all its citizens in the pleasures of life which the wealth represents. Wealth and population in the abstract are no indication of a country’s prosperity: they must in some way be related to one another before being employed as the basis of comparison.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol i, p. 9.)

[385] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 250. Elsewhere he adds: “Should the Government ever propose to further the interests of one class at the expense of another that class should certainly be the workers.” (_Ibid._, vol. i, p. 372.)

[386] _Cours complet_, vol. ii, p. 551.

[387] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 333.

[388] _Ibid._, p. 336.

[389] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, pp. 220-221.

[390] The unanimity is not quite absolute, however. Ricardo in the third edition of his _Principles_ added a chapter on machinery in which he admitted that he was mistaken in the belief that machines after a short period always proved favourable to the interests of the workers. He recognised that the worker might suffer, for though the machine increases the net product of industry it frequently diminishes the total product. He seemed to think that this might happen frequently, but in reality it is quite exceptional.

[391] We may here recall the celebrated winch argument. Suppose, says Sismondi, that England succeeded in tilling her fields and doing all the work of her towns by means of steam power, so that her total products and revenue remain the same as they are to-day, though her population is only equal to that of the republic of Geneva. Is she to be regarded as being richer and more prosperous? Ricardo would reply in the affirmative. Wealth is everything, men nothing. Really, then, a single king, dwelling alone on the island, by merely turning a winch might conceivably automatically perform all the work done in England to-day. One can only reply to this argument by saying that long before arriving at this state the community itself would have devised some machinery for distributing the product between all its members. To suppose that a portion of the population dies of hunger through want of employment while the other part continues to manufacture the same quantity of goods as before is sufficiently contradictory. But at bottom, disregarding the paradoxical form given it by Sismondi, the question set by him is insoluble. What is the best equilibrium between production and population? Are we to prefer a population rapidly increasing in numbers, but making no advance in wealth, to a population which is stationary or even decreasing, but rapidly advancing in wealth? Everyone is free to choose for himself. Science gives us no criterion.

[392] “We have said elsewhere, but think it essential to repeat it, that it is not the perfection of machinery that is the real calamity, but the unjust distribution of the goods produced. The more we are able to increase the quantity of goods produced with a given quantity of labour, the more ought we to increase our comforts or our leisure. Were the worker his own master, after accomplishing in two hours with a machine a task which formerly took him twelve he would then desist from toil, unless he had some new need or were able to make use of a larger amount of products. It is our present organisation and the workman’s servitude that has forced him to work not less but more hours, at the same wage, and this despite the fact that machinery has increased his productive powers.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 318.) In this passage we have Sismondi’s real opinion on the subject of machinery most clearly expressed.

[393] _Wealth of Nations_, Book II, chap. 2, in fine.

[394] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 92.

[395] _Études sur l’Économie politique_, vol. i, p. 35.

[396] _Ibid._, pp. 274-275.

[397] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 103.

[398] On this point we must dissociate ourselves from the interpretation placed upon the passage by M. Aftalion in his otherwise excellent monograph, _L’Œuvre économique de Simonde de Sismondi_ (Paris, 1899), as well as from the view expressed by M. Denis (_Histoire des Systèmes économiques_, vol. ii, p. 306). But Sismondi’s text appears to us to leave no room for doubt. “As against land we might combine the other two sources of wealth, life which enables a man to work and capital which employs him. These two powers when united possess an expansive characteristic, so that the labour which a worker puts in his work one year will be greater than that put in the preceding year—upon the product of which the worker will have supported himself. It is because of this surplus value [_mieux value_], which increases as the arts and sciences are progressively applied to industry, that society obtains a constant increment of wealth.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 103.)

[399] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, pp. 111-112. Cf. also p. 87: “Wealth, however, co-operates with labour. And its possessor withholds from the worker the part which the worker has produced beyond his cost of maintenance—as compensation for the help which he has given him.” It is true that this proportion is a considerable one. “The _entrepreneur_ is bound to leave to the worker just enough to keep him alive, reserving for himself all that the worker has produced over and above this.” (P. 103.) But this is not a matter of necessity—a deduction from the laws of value, as it is with Marx.

[400] “The poor man, by his labour and his respect for the property of others, acquires a right to his home, to warm, proper clothing, to ample nourishment sufficiently varied to maintain health and strength.… Only when all these things have been secured to the poor as the fruit of their labour does the claim of the rich come in. What is superfluous, after supplying the needs of everyone, that should constitute the revenue of opulence.” (_Études sur l’Économie politique_, vol. i, p. 273.) Here we see quite clearly the sense in which Sismondi uses the term “spoliation.”

[401] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 407. Cf. also pp. 200, 201.

[402] “Everyone’s interest if checked by everybody else’s would in reality represent the common interest. But when everyone is seeking his own interest at the expense of others as well as developing his own means, it does not always happen that he is opposed by equally powerful forces. The strong thus find it their interest to seize and the weak to acquiesce, for the least evil as well as the greatest good is a part of the aim of human policy.” (_Ibid._, p. 407.) Cf. also _infra_, p. 188, note 1.

[403] “There is one fundamental change which is still possible in society, amid this universal struggle created by competition, and that is the introduction of the proletariat into the ranks of human beings—the proletariat, whose name, borrowed from the Romans, is so old, but who is himself so new.” (_Études sur l’Économie politique_, vol. i, p. 34.)

[404] _Revue mensuelle d’Économie politique_, 1834, vol. ii, p. 124.

[405] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 434.

[406] _Études sur l’Économic politique_, introd., pp. 39 _et seq._

[407] “That everyone understands his own interest better than any Government ever can is a maxim that has been considerably emphasised by economists. But they have too lightly affirmed that the interest of each to avoid the greatest evil coincides with the general interest. It is to the interest of the man who wishes to impoverish his neighbour to rob him, and it may be the latter’s interest to let him do it provided he can escape with his life.

“But it is not in the interest of society that the one should exercise the force and that the other should yield. The interest of the day labourer undoubtedly is that the wages for a day of ten hours should be sufficient for his upkeep and the upbringing of his children. It is also the interest of society. But the interest of the unemployed is to find bread at any price. He will work fourteen hours a day, will send his children to work in a factory at ten years of age, will jeopardise his own health and life and the very existence of his own class in order to escape the pressure of present need.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, pp. 200-201.)

[408] _Ibid._, p. 201.

[409] “Population will then regulate itself simply in accordance with the revenue. Where it exceeds this proportion it is always just because the fathers are deceived as to what they believe to be their revenue, or rather because they are deceived by society.” (_Ibid._, p. 254.) “The more the poor is deprived of all right of property the greater is the danger of its mistaking its revenue and contributing to the growth of a population which, because it does not correspond to the demand for labour, will never find sufficient means of subsistence.” (_Ibid._, p. 264.)

[410] _Ibid._, p. 286.

[411] We note that Sismondi does not accept Malthus’s theory of population. He never admits that population depends upon the means of subsistence; he holds that it varies according to the will of the proprietor, who stimulates or retards it according to his demand, but who is interested in its limitation in order to secure for himself the maximum net product. “Population has never reached the limits of possible subsistence, and probably it never will. But all those who desire the subsistence have neither the means nor the right to extract it from the soil. Those, on the contrary, to whom the laws give the monopoly of the land have no interest in obtaining from it all the subsistence it might produce. In all countries proprietors are opposed, and must be opposed, to any system of cultivation which would tend merely to multiply the means of subsistence while not increasing the revenue. Long before being arrested by the impossibility of finding a country which produced more subsistence population would be checked by the impossibility of finding the people to buy those means or to work and bring them into being.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, pp. 269-270.)

[412] _Ibid._, pp. 263, 264.

[413] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 153.

[414] _Ibid._, p. 235. This problem of the net and gross produce occupied Sismondi’s attention for a long time. We find a suggestion of it in his first work, _Le Tableau de l’Agriculture toscane_ (Geneva, 1801), and though he does not definitely take the side of the gross produce, he shows some leanings that way. “Why is the gain of a single rich farmer considered more profitable for a State than the miserable earnings of several thousand workers and peasants?” The book, however, is a treatise on practical agriculture, and includes only a few economic dicta. It is here that we have his beautiful description of his farm at Val Chiuso (p. 219).

[415] It is true that Sismondi wished to get rid of the practice of producing corn for a market, so as to free the nation’s food from the fluctuations of that market. Neither is he over-enthusiastic in his praise of the gross produce. He recognises that the gradual growth of the gross produce might, in its way, be the consequence of a state of suffering if population were to progress too rapidly (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 153). This shows what a hesitating mind we are dealing with.

[416] _Ibid._, p. 368.

[417] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 361.

[418] Elsewhere he remarks: “The petty merchants, the small manufacturers, disappear, and a great _entrepreneur_ replaces hundreds of them whose total wealth was never equal to his. Taken altogether, however, they consumed more than he does. His costly luxury gives much less encouragement to industry than the honest ease of the hundred homes which it has replaced.” (_Ibid._, p. 327). The theory is more than doubtful. What we want to know is whether the demand will remain the same in amount, not whether there will be no change in its character—a contingency that need not result in a general crisis, but simply in a passing inconvenience.

[419] Sismondi applies the same principles to a consideration of a fall in the rate of interest as he does to the growth of production or the increase of machinery. “An increase of capital is desirable only when its employment can be increased at the same time. But whenever the rate of interest is lowered it is a certain sign that the employment of capital has proportionally diminished as compared with the amount available; and this fall in the rate, which is always advantageous to some people, is disadvantageous to others—some will have to be content with smaller incomes and others with none at all.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 393.)

[420] Compare the Saint-Simonian review, _Le Producteur_, vol. iv, pp. 887-888.

[421] _Nouveaux Lundis_, vol. vi, p. 81.

[422] _Études sur l’Économie politique_, vol. i, pp. 60, 61.

[423] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 341; vol. ii, p. 459.

[424] _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 415, 435. See also _Études_, vol. i, p. 25.

[425] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, pp. 365, 366.

[426] _Ibid._, p. 451.

[427] _Ibid._, p. 338.

[428] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 661.

[429] _Ibid._, p. 364.

[430] See section I of present chapter.

[431] Knies, strangely enough, classes him with the socialists.

[432] A. Blanqui, in his _Histoire de l’Économie politique en Europe_ (1837), considers him a writer of the modern school, which he describes as follows: “Writers of this school are no longer willing to treat production as a pure abstraction apart from its influence upon the workers. To produce wealth is not enough; it must be equitably distributed.” (Introd., 3rd ed., p. xxi.)

[433] Droz (1773-1850) published in 1829 his _Économie politique, ou Principes de la Science des Richesses_. It is in this work that we find the famous phrase, “Certain economists seem to think that products are not made for men, but that men are made for the products.”

[434] Paris, 1841, two volumes. Buret died in 1842, when thirty-two years of age.

[435] It was not intended that any reference should be made in this volume to the doctrine of socialism before the opening of the nineteenth century, but the question whether the French Revolution of 1789 was socialist in character or simply middle-class, as the socialists of to-day would put it, has been so frequently discussed that we cannot ignore it altogether.

There is no doubt that the leaders of the Revolution—including Marat even, who is wrongly regarded as a supporter of that agrarian law which he condemned as fatal and erroneous—always showed unfailing respect for the institution of private property. The confiscation of the property of the Church and of the _émigré_ nobles was a political and not an economic measure, and in that respect is fairly comparable with the historic confiscation of the property of Jews, Templars, Huguenots, and Irish, which in no case was inspired by merely socialist motives. The confiscation of endowments—of goods belonging to legal persons—was regarded as a means of defending individual or real property against the encroachments of merely fictitious persons and the tyranny of the dead hand. When it came to the abolition of feudal rights great care was taken to distinguish the tenant’s rights of sovereignty, which were about to be abolished, from his proprietary rights, which deserved the respect of everyone who recognised the legitimacy of compensation. In practice the distinction proved of little importance. Scores of people were ruined during those unfortunate months—some through mere misfortune, others because of the muddle over the issue of assignats, and others, again, because of the confiscation of rents; but the intention to respect the rights of property remains indisputable still. It would seem that in this matter the revolutionary leaders had come under the influence of the Physiocrats, whose cult of property has already engaged our attention. And how easy it would be to imagine a Physiocrat penning Article 17 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man when it speaks of property as an inviolable, sacred right! But, on the other hand, it is true that Rousseau in his article _Économie politique_ speaks of the rights of property as the most sacred of the citizen’s rights.

It was not only on the question of property that the revolutionists of 1789 showed themselves anti-socialist. They were also anti-socialist in the sense that they paid no attention to class war and ignored the antagonism that exists between capitalists and workers. All were to be treated as citizens and brothers, all were equal and alike.

However, those who claim the most intimate connection with the spirit of the Revolution remain undismayed by such considerations. They endeavour to show that the Revolution was not quite so conservative nor so completely individualistic as is generally supposed, and after diligent search they claim to have discovered certain decrees bearing unmistakable traces of socialism. But a much more general practice is to plead extenuating circumstances. “Are we to demand that the social problems which appeared fifty years afterwards, when industry had revolutionised the relations of capital and labour, should have been solved at the end of the eighteenth century? It would have been worse than useless for the men of 1789 and 1793 to try to regulate such things in advance.” (Aulard, Address to Students, April 21, 1893. Cf. his _Histoire politique de la Révolution_, chap. 8, paragraph entitled “_Le Socialisme_.”)

We must not lose sight of the communist plot hatched by François Babeuf during the period of the Revolution. But in this case, at any rate, the exception proves the rule, for, despite the fact that Babeuf had assumed the suggestive name of Gaius Gracchus, he found little sympathy among the men of the Convention, even in La Montagne, and he was condemned and executed by order of the Directory. Babeuf’s plot is interesting, if only as an anticipatory protest of revolutionary socialism against _bourgeois_ revolution. Cf. Aulard, _loc. cit._, p. 627.

[436] Not to speak of celebrated Utopians like Plato, More, and Campanella, a number of writers who have been minutely studied by Lichtenberger undertook to supply such criticism in the eighteenth century. Morelly, Mably, Brissot, and Meslier the _curé_ in France, and Godwin in England, attacked the institution of property with becoming vigour. Babeuf, who in 1797 suffered death for his attempt to establish a community of equals, has left us a summary of their theories. But the Saint-Simonians owe them nothing in the way of inspiration. Eighteenth-century socialism was essentially equalitarian. What aroused the anger of the eighteenth-century writers most of all was the inequality of pleasure and of well-being, for which they held the institution of private property responsible. “If men have the same needs and the same faculties they ought to be given the same material and the same intellectual opportunities,” says the _Manifeste des Égaux_. But the Saint-Simonians recognise neither equality of needs nor of faculties, and they are particularly anxious not to be classed along with the Babeuvistes—the champions of the agrarian law. Their socialism, which is founded upon the right to the whole produce of labour and would apportion wages according to capacity, aims neither at equality nor uniformity.

The Saint-Simonians seem to have remained in ignorance of the socialist theories of their contemporaries, the French Fourier and the English Thompson and Owen. Fourier’s work only became known to Enfantin after his own economic doctrine had been formulated. Saint-Simon and Bazard appear never to have read him. It is probable that Enfantin only became aware of Fourier’s writings after 1829, and when he did he interested himself merely in those that dealt with free love and the theory of passions. As Bourgin put it: “If Fourier did anything at all, he has rather hastened the decomposition of Saint-Simonism.” (Henry Bourgin, _Fourier_, p. 419; Paris, 1905.)

The English socialists are never as much as mentioned. The Ricardian doctrine of labour-value, which is the basis of Thompson’s theory and of Owen’s, and later still of that of Marx, seems never to have become known to them. “Questions of value, price, and production, which demand no fundamental knowledge either of the composition or the organisation of society,” are treated as so many details (_Le Producteur_, vol. iv, p. 388). Their doctrine is primarily social, containing only occasional allusions to political economy. Enfantin is careful to distinguish between Quesnay and his school and Smith or Say. The Physiocrats gave a social character to their doctrine, which the economists wrongfully neglected to develop. Aug. Comte, in the fourth volume of the _Cours de Philosophie_, has criticised political economy in almost identical terms, which affords an additional proof of his indebtedness to Saint-Simonism.

[437] Cf. especially Dumas, _Psychologie de deux Messies positivistes, Saint-Simon et A. Comte_ (Paris, 1905), and for biographical details Weill, _Saint-Simon et son Œuvre_ (1894).

[438] Weill, _Saint-Simon et son Œuvre_, p. 15.

[439] In 1814 _De la Réorganisation de la Société européenne_, by Saint-Simon and A. Thierry, his pupil; 1817-18, _Industrie_, in 4 vols. (the 3rd vol. and the first book of the 4th vol. are the work of A. Comte); 1819, _La Politique_; 1821, _Le Système industriel_; 1823-24, _Le Catéchisme des Industriels_ (the third book, by A. Comte, bears the title _Système de Politique positive_); 1825, _Le Nouveau Christianisme_. Our quotations from Saint-Simon are taken from the _Œuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin_, published by members of the committee instituted by Enfantin for carrying out the master’s last wishes (Paris, Dentu, 1865), and from the _Œuvres choisies de Saint-Simon_, published in 3 vols. by Lemonnier of Brussels (1859).

[440] _L’Organisateur_, Part I, 1819, pp. 10-20. This passage was republished by Olinde Rodrigues in 1832 under the title of _Une Parabole politique_ in a volume of miscellaneous writings by Saint-Simon, with the result that Saint-Simon was prosecuted before the Cour d’Assises. He was acquitted, however.

[441] “With the enfranchisement of the communes we shall witness the middle classes at last in enjoyment of their liberty, setting up as a political power. The essence of that power will consist in freedom from being imposed upon by others without consent. Gradually it will become richer and stronger, at the same time growing in political importance and improving its social position in every respect, with the result that the other classes, which may be called the theological or feudal classes, will dwindle in estimation as well as in their real importance. Whence I conclude that the industrial classes must continue to gain ground, and finally to include the whole of society. Such seems to be the trend of things—the direction in which we are moving.” (_Lettres à un Américain, Œuvres_, vol. ii, p. 166.)

[442] “Industry is the basis of liberty. Industry can only expand and grow strong with the growth of liberty. Were this doctrine, so old in fact but so new to many people, once fully grasped instead of those fictitious dreams of antiquity, we should have heard the last of such sanguinary phrases as ‘equality or death.’” (_Œuvres_, vol. ii, pp. 210-211.)

[443] “Lawyers and metaphysicians are wont to take appearance for reality, the name for the thing.” (_Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. v., p. 12.)

[444] “Parliamentary government must be regarded as an indispensable step in the direction of industrialism.” (_Œuvres_, vol. iii, p. 22.) “It is absolutely necessary if the transition from the essentially arbitrary _régime_ which has existed hitherto is to be replaced by the ideal liberal _régime_ which is bound to come into being by and by.” (_Ibid._ p. 21.)

[445] Writing in 1803 in his _Lettres d’un Habitant de Genève_, he uses the following words: “Everyone will be obliged to do some work. The duty of employing one’s personal ability in furthering the interests of humanity is an obligation that rests upon the shoulders of everyone.” (_Œuvres_, vol. i, p. 55.)

[446] “I find it essential to give to the term ‘labour’ the widest latitude possible. The civil servant, the scientist, the artist, the manufacturer, and the agriculturist are all working as certainly as the labourer who tills the ground or the porter who shoulders his burden.” (Introduction to _Travaux scientifiques, Œuvres choisies_, vol. i, p. 221.)

[447] The national or industrial party includes the following classes:

1. All who till the land, as well as any who direct their operations.

2. All artisans, manufacturers, and merchants, all carriers by land or by sea, as well as everyone whose labour serves directly or indirectly for the production or the utilisation of commodities; all savants who have consecrated their talents to the study of the positive sciences, all artists and liberal advocates; “the small number of priests who preach a healthy morality; and, finally, all citizens who willingly employ either their talents or their means in freeing producers from the unjust supremacy exercised over them by idle consumers.”

“In the anti-national party figure the nobles who labour for the restoration of the old _régime_, all priests who make morality consist of blind obedience to the decrees of Pope or clergy, owners of real estates, noblemen who do nothing, judges who exercise arbitrary jurisdiction, as well as soldiers who support them—in a word, everyone who is opposed to the establishment of the system that is most favourable to economy or liberty.” (_Le Parti national_, in _Le Politique, Œuvres_, vol. iii, pp. 202-204.)

[448] _Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. vi, p. 17, note.

[449] _Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. vi, pp. 91-92.

[450] _Œuvres_, vol. iii, pp. 35-36.

[451] On this point see Halévy’s article in the _Revue du Mois_ for December 1907, _Les Idées économiques de Saint-Simon_, and Allix, article mentioned _supra_, p. 117.

[452] In the following passage the opposition is very marked: “One must recognise that nearly all Government measures which have presumed to influence social prosperity have simply proved harmful. Hence people have come to the conclusion that the best way in which a Government can further the well-being of society is by letting it alone. But this method of looking at the question, however just it may seem when we consider it in relation to the present political system, is evidently false when it is adopted as a general principle. The impression will remain, however, until we succeed in establishing another political order.” (_L’Organisateur, Œuvres_, vol. iv, p. 201.)

Later on the Saint-Simonians abandoned this idea and demanded Governmental control of all social relations. “Far from admitting that the directive control of Government in social matters ought to be restricted, we believe that it ought to be extended until it includes every kind of social activity. Moreover, we believe that it should always be exercised, for society to us seems a veritable hierarchy.” (_Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Exposition, Deuxième Année_, p. 108; Paris, 1830.)

[453] “Under the old _régime_ men were considered inferior to things,” according to a brochure entitled _Des Bourbons et des Stuarts_ (1822; _Œuvres choisies_, vol. ii, p. 447). “The object of the new system will be to extend man’s hold over things.” (_Œuvres_, vol. iv, p. 81.) “In the present state of education what the nation wants is not more government, but more cheap administration.” (_Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. v, p. 181.) Engels, in his book written in reply to Eugen Dühring, makes use of identical terms in speaking of the socialist _régime_. “When the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production take the place of the governing of persons the State will not merely be abolished: it will be dead.” (_Philosophie, Économie politique, Socialisme_, French translation by Laskine, p. 361; Paris, 1911.)

[454] _Lettres à un Américain, Œuvres_, vol. ii, p. 189.

[455] _Des Bourbons et des Stuarts, Œuvres choisies_, vol. ii, pp. 437-438.

[456] _L’Organisateur, Œuvres choisies_, vol. iv, pp. 86 and 150-151.

[457] _Lettres à un Américain, Œuvres_, vol. ii, p. 188.

[458] This is not the only plan of government proposed by Saint-Simon, although it is the one most characteristic of him. It is to be found in _L’Organisateur_ immediately after the Parable. We have to remember that Saint-Simon was very hostile to a Government of savants. Power was to be placed in the hands of the industrial leaders—the savants were simply to advise. “Should we ever have the misfortune to establish a political order in which administration was entrusted to savants we should soon witness the corruption of the scientists, who would readily adopt the vices of the clergy and become astute, despotic quibblers.” (_Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. v, p. 161.)

[459] _Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. vi, p. 96.

[460] F. Engels, _Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft_, 4th ed., p. 277. French translation, Paris, 1911, p. 334. The whole of this chapter in Engels’ book is from the pen of Karl Marx.

[461] French translation under the title _L’État socialiste_, Paris, 1906.

[462] This is the full text: “The object of socialism is to set up a new system of society based upon the workshop as a model. The rights of the society will be the customary rights of the factory. Not only will socialism stand to benefit by the existence of the industrial system which has been built up by capital and science upon the basis of technical development, but it will gain even more from that spirit of co-operation which has long been a feature of factory life, drawing out the best energy and the best skill of the workman.” Earlier in the same volume he writes: “Everything will proceed in an orderly, economical fashion, just like a factory.” (G. Sorel, _Le Syndicalisme révolutionnaire_, in _Le Mouvement socialiste_, November 1 and 15, 1905.)

[463] Saint-Simon often quotes Say and Smith with distinct approval. But he charges Say with the separation of politics from economics instead of merging the former in the latter, and with inability to realise to the full extent what he “dimly saw, as it were, in spite of himself, namely, that political economy is the one true foundation of politics.” (_Lettres à un Américain, Œuvres_, vol. ii, p. 185.)

[464] Saint-Simon is classed among the socialists for two reasons: (1) the interest he takes in the condition of the poor; (2) his opinions concerning the necessity for reforming the institution of private property. But none of the texts that are generally quoted seem to have the significance that is occasionally given them. With regard to the first point, a celebrated passage from the _Nouveau Christianisme_ is the one usually quoted: “Society should be organised in such a fashion as to secure the greatest advantage for the greatest number. The object of all its labours and activities should be the promptest, completest amelioration possible of the moral and physical condition of the most numerous class.” (_Œuvres_, vol. vii, pp. 108-109.) Already in his _Système industriel_ Saint-Simon had said that the direct object which he had in view was to better the lot of that class that had no other means of existence than the labour of its own right arm. (_Ibid._, vol. vi, p. 81.) But is this not just the old Benthamite formula—the greatest good of the greatest number? Besides, how does Saint-Simon propose to secure all this? By giving the workers more power? Not at all. “The problem of social organisation must be solved for the people. The people themselves are passive and listless and must be discounted in any consideration of the question. The best way is to entrust public administration to the care of the industrial chiefs, who will always directly attempt to give the widest possible scope to their undertakings, with the result that their efforts in this direction will lead to the maximum expansion of the amount of work executed by the mass of the people.” (_Ibid._, vol. vi, pp. 82-83.) A Liberal economist would hardly have expressed it otherwise.

As to the question of private property, Saint-Simon certainly regarded its transformation as at least possible. This is seen in a number of passages. “Property should be reconstituted and established upon a foundation that might prove more favourable for production,” says he in _L’Organisateur_. (_Ibid._, vol. iv, p. 59.) Elsewhere, in a letter written to the editor of the _Journal général de la France_, he mentions the fact that he is occupied with the development of the following ideas: (1) That the law establishing the right of private property is the most important of all, seeing that it is the basis of our social edifice; (2) the institution of private property ought to be constituted in such a fashion that the possessors may be stimulated to make the best possible use of it. (_Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 43-44.) In his _Lettres à un Américain_ he gives the following résumé of the principles which underlie the work of J. B. Say (an incidental proof of his attachment to the Liberal economists): “The production of useful objects is the only positive, reasonable aim which political societies can propose for themselves, and consequently the principle of respect for production and producers is a much more fruitful one than the other principle of respect for property and proprietors.” (_Œuvres_, vol. ii, pp. 186-187.) But all that this seems to us to imply is that the utility of property constitutes its legality and that it should be organised with a view to social utility. Admitting that he did conceive of the necessity of a reform of property, it does not appear that he intended this to mean anything beyond a reform of landed property. We have already seen how he regarded capital as a kind of social outlay which demanded remuneration. The following passage bears eloquent testimony to his respect for movable property: “Wealth, generally speaking, affords a proof of the manufacturers’ ability even where that wealth is derived from inherited fortune, whereas in the other classes of society it is apparently true to say that the richer are inferior in capacity to those who have received less education but have a smaller fortune. This is a truth that must play an important part in positive politics.” (_Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. v, p. 49, note.)

[465] The exact title is _Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Exposition, Première Année_, 1829. Our quotations are taken from the second edition (Paris, 1830). One ought to mention, in addition to these, the articles contributed by Enfantin to _Le Globe_ and republished under the title of _Économie politique et Politique_, in one volume (2nd ed., 1832). But none of these articles is as interesting as the _Doctrine_, and they only reproduce the ideas already discussed by Enfantin in his articles in _Le Producteur_.

[466] Despite the fact that the oral exposition of the doctrine was the work of Bazard and was prepared for the press by his disciples—Hippolyte Carnot among others—most of the economic ideas contained in it must be attributed to Enfantin. Enfantin also was responsible for the majority of the economic articles that appeared in _Le Producteur_. But the doctrine set forth in _Le Producteur_ differs considerably from that expounded in the _Exposition_. Interest and rent are subjected to severe criticism as tributes paid to idleness by industry. Inheritance, on the other hand, though treated with scant sympathy, is not condemned. A lowering of the rate of interest would, Enfantin thinks, help to enfranchise the workers, and a sound credit system would solve the greatest of modern problems—that is, it would reconcile workers and idlers, “whose interests will never again be confused with the general interest, inasmuch as the possession of the fruits of past labour will no longer constitute a claim to the enjoyment of the benefits of labour in the present or future.” (_Le Producteur_, vol. ii, p. 124.) These ideas are more fully developed in the _Exposition_.

[467] _Doctrine de Saint-Simon_, p. 182.

[468] _Ibid._, p. 190.

[469] _Ibid._, p. 93.

[470] Sismondi’s term was rather “spoliation.” See _supra_, p. 185.

[471] “The mass of workers are to-day exploited by those people whose property they use. Captains of industry in their dealings with proprietors have to submit to a similar kind of treatment, only to a much less degree. But they occasionally share in the privilege of the exploiters, for the full burden of exploitation falls upon the working classes—that is, upon the vast majority of mankind.” (_Doctrine de Saint-Simon_, p. 176.)

[472] “It is our belief that profits diminish while wages increase; but the term ‘wages’ as we use it includes the profits that accrue to the _entrepreneur_, whose earnings we regard as the price of his labour.” (_Le Producteur_, vol. i, p. 245. The article is by Enfantin.)

[473] We might sum up the different senses of the word “exploitation” as used by Sismondi, the Saint-Simonians, and Marx respectively as follows:

(1) Sismondi thinks that the worker is exploited whenever he is not paid a wage sufficient to enable him to lead a decent existence. Unearned income seems quite legitimate, however.

(2) Exploitation exists, in the opinion of the Saint-Simonians, whenever a part of the material produce raised by labour is devoted to the remuneration of proprietors through the operation of ordinary social factors.

(3) Marx speaks of exploitation whenever a portion of the produce of labour is devoted to the remuneration of capital either through the existence of social institutions or the operation of the laws of exchange.

[474] See p. 25.

[475] _Doctrine_, p. 191.

[476] See p. 79, note.

[477] _Doctrine_, pp. 191-192.

[478] The Saint-Simonians never make use of the term, but they describe the doctrine admirably.

[479] “We may provisionally speak of this system as a general system of banking, ignoring for the time being the somewhat narrow interpretation usually placed upon that word. In the first place, the system would comprise a central bank, which would directly represent the Government. This bank would be the depository for every kind of wealth, of all funds for productive purposes and all instruments of labour—in a word, it would include everything that is to-day comprised within the term ‘private property.’ Depending upon this central bank would be other banks of a secondary character, which would be, as it were, a prolongation of the former and would supply it with the means of coming into touch with the principal localities, informing the central institution as to their particular needs and their productive ability. Within the area circumscribed for these banks would be other banks of a more specialised character still, covering a less extensive field and including within their ambit the tenderer branches of the industrial tree. All wants would be finally focused in the central bank and all effort would radiate from it.” (_Doctrine_, pp. 206-207.) The idea is probably Enfantin’s, for there is an exposition of the same idea in _Le Producteur_, vol. iii, p. 385.

[480] _Doctrine_, p. 210, note. Elsewhere (p. 330): “We are weary of every political principle that does not aim directly at putting the destiny of the people in the hands of the most able and devoted among them.”

[481] “We come back with real joy to this great virtue, so frequently misconceived, not to say misrepresented, at the present time—that virtue which is so easy and so delightful in persons who have a common aim which they want to attain, but which is so painful and revolting when combined with egoism. This virtue of obedience is one to which our thoughts return ever with love,” (_Ibid._, p. 330.)

[482] The formula in the third edition of the _Doctrine_ is a little different. “Each one,” it runs there, “ought to be endowed according to his merits and rewarded according to his work.” We know that the first part of the formula refers to the distribution of capital, _i.e._ to the instruments of labour, while the second refers to individual incomes. The word “classed” was substituted for “endowed” in the second edition.

[483] Published as an appendix to the second edition of the _Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Exposition, Première Année_, 1829.

[484] In his small volume _Le Collectivisme_ (Paris, 1900).

[485] Littré has disputed Comte’s indebtedness to Saint-Simon in his _Auguste Comte et le Positivisme_. Saint-Simon, however, in his preface to _Système industriel_ remarks that in political matters the jurists form a connecting link between feudal government on the one hand and industrial government on the other, just as the metaphysicians are intermediate between the theological and the scientific _régimes_. In a note which he adds he states his position still more clearly (_Œuvres_, vol. v, p. 9). It is true that the _Système industriel_ dates from 1821, and is consequently subsequent to the beginning of the friendly relations between Comte and Saint-Simon. But textual evidence, however precise, cannot decide the question of the reciprocal influence which these two Messiahs exercised upon one another. A similar idea had already found expression in Turgot’s work.

[486] P. 179.

[487] “Another mistake that is also very general is to speak of property as if it were an institution with a fixed, unchangeable form, while as a matter of fact it has assumed various aspects and is still capable of further modification as yet undreamt of.” (Laveleye, _De la Propriété et de ses Formes primitives_, 1st ed., 1874, p. 381.) Stuart Mill, in a letter addressed to Laveleye on November 17, 1872, congratulated him on the demonstration he had given of this. (_Ibid._, preface, p. xiii.)

[488] Note this argument, which has so frequently been employed by Liberal economists, and which we shall come across in Bastiat’s work. The Saint-Simonians are constantly running with the hare as well as hunting with the hounds.

[489] _Doctrine_, p. 182. The historical argument of which we have just given a short summary is developed in the _Doctrine_, pp. 179-193. It is open to a still more fundamental criticism, inasmuch as it does not seem to be historically accurate.

[490] Saint-Simon, _Mémoire introductif sur sa Contestation avec M. de Redern_ (1812) (_Œuvres_, vol. i, p. 122).

[491] _Doctrine_, p. 144.

[492] The philosophy of history might be said to consist of attempts to show that history is made up of alternating periods of organic growth and destructive criticism. The former periods are marked by unity of thought and aim, of feeling and action in society; the latter by a conflict of ideas and sentiments, by political and social instability. The former periods are essentially religious, the latter selfish. Reform and revolution are the modern manifestations of the critical nature of the period in which we live. Saint-Simonism would lead us into a definitely organic epoch. Historical evolution seems to point to a religious and universal association.

[493] _Doctrine_, p. 119.

[494] _Ibid._, p. 121. “Man is not without some intuitive knowledge of his destiny, but when science has proved the correctness of his surmises and demonstrated the accuracy of his forecasts, when it has assured him of the legitimacy of his desires, he will move on with all the greater assurance and calmness towards a future that is no longer unknown to him. Thus will he become a free, intelligent agent working out his own destiny, which he himself cannot change, but which he may considerably expedite by his own efforts.”

[495] This is developed at great length in the seventh lecture, _Doctrine_, pp. 211 _et seq._

[496] “Politics,” says Saint-Simon, “have their roots in morality, and a people’s institutions are just the expression of their thoughts.” (_Œuvres_, vol. iii, p. 31.) “Philosophy,” he remarks elsewhere, “is responsible for the creation of all the more important political institutions. No other power would have the strength necessary to check the action of those that have already become antiquated or to set up others more in conformity with a new doctrine.” (_Syst. indust._, _Œuvres_, vol. v, p. 167.) He further insists upon the part which philanthropists may play in the creation of a new society. “One truth,” he writes, “that has been established in the course of human progress is this: a disinterested desire for the general well-being of the community is a more effective instrument of political improvement than the conscious self-regarding action of the classes for which these changes will prove most beneficial. In a word, experience seems to show that those who should naturally be most interested in the establishment of a new order of things are not those who show the greatest desire to bring it about.” (_Œuvres_, vol. vi, p. 120.) It would be difficult to imagine a neater refutation of Marxian ideas, especially the contention that the emancipation of the workers can only come from the workers themselves.

[497] Cf. on these points Weill, _L’École Saint-Simonienne_ (1896), and Charléty, _Histoire du Saint-Simonisme_ (1896).

[498] “The object of credit,” says Enfantin (_Économie politique et Politique_, p. 53), “in a society where one set of people possess the instruments of production but lack capacity or desire to employ them, and where another have the desire to work but are without the means, is to help the passage of these instruments from the former’s possession into the hands of the latter.” No better definition was ever given.

[499] _Doctrine_, p. 226. Cf. p. 223 for an eloquent passage denouncing Ricardo and Malthus, who, as the result of their “profound researches into the question of rent,” undertake to defend the institution of private property.

[500] The article is entitled _De la Classe ouvrière_, and may be found in vol. iv of _Le Producteur_. See particularly pp. 308 _et seq._

[501] Engels, _Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft_, p. 277.

[502] “The majority of economists, and especially Say, whose work we have just reviewed, regard property as a fixed factor whose origin and progress is no concern of theirs, but whose social utility alone concerns them. The conception of a distinctively social order is more foreign still to the English writers.” (_Doctrine_, pp. 221 and 223.) No exception is made in favour of Sismondi or Turgot.

[503] _Le Producteur_, vol. iii, p. 385.

[504] In the preface to _Économie politique et Politique_, Enfantin again writes: “All questions of political economy should be linked together by a common principle, and in order to judge of the social utility of a measure or idea in economics it is absolutely necessary to consider whether this idea or measure is directly advantageous to the workers or whether it indirectly contributes to the amelioration of their lot by discrediting idleness.” It is a pleasure to be able to concur in the opinion expressed by M. Halévy in his article on Saint-Simon (_Revue du Mois_ for December 1907), in which he maintains that this idea is the distinctive trait of Saint-Simon’s socialism. We have already called attention to another feature that seems to us equally important, namely, the suggested substitution of industrial administration for political government.

[505] It is impossible not to make a special mention of Anton Menger’s excellent little book. _Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_ (1886) (the English translation, with an excellent introduction by Professor Foxwell, is unfortunately out of print). It is indispensable in any history of socialism. We must also mention, with deep acknowledgments, Pareto’s _Les Systèmes socialistes_ (Paris, 1902, 2 vols.)—the most originally critical work yet published on this subject, though not always the most impartial—and Bourguin’s _Les Systèmes socialistes et l’Évolution économique_ (Paris, 1906), as containing the most scientific criticism of the economic theories of socialism.

[506] “Association, which is destined to put an end to antagonism, has not yet found its true form. Hitherto it has consisted of separate groups which have been at war with one another. Accordingly antagonism has not yet become extinct, but it certainly will as soon as association has become universal.” (_Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Exposition, Première Année_, p. 177.)

[507] In Owen’s paper, the _Economist_, for August 11, 1821, we meet with the following words: “The secret is out!… The object sought to be obtained is not _equality_ in rank or possessions, is not _community of goods_, but full, complete, unrestrained co-operation on the part of all the members for every purpose of social life.” Fourier writes in a similar strain: “Association holds the secret of the union of interests.” (_Assoc. domestique_, vol. i, p. 133.) Elsewhere he writes: “To-day, Good Friday, I discovered the secret of association.”